If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: Treat or not to treat

I'll confess I did not read this whole thread, and I came to it late.

A couple of comments:

1. If the OP does not want to treat, there is also an alternative to live and let die. Namely, kill the current queen, go back in a few days and tear out any queen cells they started, then give them a frame of eggs from a hive that has a low mite count. Presto, you just broke the brood cycle and got rid of some unfit genes and still kept the hive. I would add that, in this scenario, you could also use Hopguard to knock down the mite level, but that would be optional.

2. Somebody mentioned the idea of "invasive species such as Africanized honeybees." European bees are an invasive species, and so are the mites, and so are a large percentage of the plants the bees are visiting. Not sure that's particularly relevant to the meat of this thread, but it bears mentioning that our entire ecoystem at this point is a hodge-podge of invasive species.

Re: Treat or not to treat

I would add that if people choose not to treat, that is fine with me. However, I would encourage brand new beekeepers to treat and learn how to keep bees first. Dead bees don't teach you much, and you learn to keep bees by keeping bees. Reading only goes so far, at least in this context.

Also, there are treatments that are safe (for people anyway) and effective. Thymol products and Hopguard cannot possibly be dangerious to people. I put thyme in lots of stuff I cook, and that results in more thymol being in my stew than would ever be in my honey. I can't, after all, taste it in my honey, but I can taste it in my stew, which is the point, after all.

There are also treatments I would not recommend, particularly Checkmite.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Okay, so if someone taking Lisinopril and Simvastatan and a cpl of fishoil tabs per day is keeping his blood pressure and cholesteral in a good range lives to be 90 and someone who doesn't only lives to be 60, who had the better life? Maybe I didn't do anything wrong except have the wrong Grandparents. So for the sake of a drug free life I should stop the medications? Hmmm, no thanks.

And for the sake of maintaininhg live colonies I will continue their medications too. Except burning of AFB hives and not treating for nosema.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

Maybe I didn't do anything wrong except have the wrong Grandparents.

Isn't that an excuse the younger generation has just about warn out?
I hate to say this to you but if you are taking those pills at 60 you are never going to see 90 unless you get to the route cause of why you have to take those pills. You are not alone Mark our society of quick fixes pulls the wool over our eyes making us believe these pills are the answer. They are nothing more than a crutch that we lean on too heavily until it is too late. Medicating your colonies is also a crutch. Are all your bees sick? Is every bee in the colony infested with a mite? There are side affects from using a pesticide on a healthy bee. Likewise there are side affects from taking Lisinopril and Simvastatan. These drugs are keeping you alive and at the same time slowly killing you. That is exactly what is happening to the bees.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by wildbranch2007

hate to bring the thread back to bee's, but why not treating for nosema?

Not being sure what Nosema counts mean. Not being sure what to use and what formula to use it in, fumidil or lemon juice. Figuring that doing nothing is less a waste of money and labor than doing something I'm not sure of or confident of.

Re: Treat or not to treat

"Figuring that doing nothing is less a waste of money and labor than doing something I'm not sure of"

The above quote makes lots of sense to me. The first old crusty engineer that I worked for always demanded to know what the most likely outcome of any change would be. Sometimes the results of any process or operation are unexpected, but if one cannot derive an outcome before treating, then no treatment is better. Good on you Squeak Creek.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Marla Spivak spoke at EAS and said the thinking on nosema is changing. Spore counts don't matter as much as how many bees in a colony have it. If 10% have it then the queen can out lay it. At 50% the colony is under threat. She suggests not treating anyway.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by wildbranch2007

hate to bring the thread back to bee's, but why not treating for nosema?

There are at least two good reasons besides not wanting to use treatments in general.
1. Fumidil is banned in most of the world...it is not a simple antibiotic, it is a fungal toxin...one which causes birth defects, affects blood vessel growth in tumors, etc...complicated stuff, and most of the world is smart enough not use it at all (it was originally developed for human use, but the birth defect thing especailly made that a non-starter).
2. The recent research seems to show that although fumidil will control nosema C., as the treatment wears off and the concentration in the hive diminishes, it actually stimulates spore production in the nosema...a true treadmill, once you start using it, you will tend to find you need to keep using it.
I've never used the stuff, and never will.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by Keth Comollo

Marla Spivak spoke at EAS and said the thinking on nosema is changing. Spore counts don't matter as much as how many bees in a colony have it. If 10% have it then the queen can out lay it. At 50% the colony is under threat. She suggests not treating anyway.

That makes a sort of sense similar to what I was thinking. That if one samples a hive, w/ 50 bees in the sample, just a cpl of bees w/ 5 millions spores can make the spores per bee info look worse than it really is, if most of the rest don't have any or many nosema sporse at all.

So, Beltsville should be telling us how many bees in a sample were infested w/ Nosema and then the spores per bee average. Or is that mean that I mean?

Re: Treat or not to treat

Mark, seems a bit simpler (and faster) to run the samples yourself. I can't see a good reason to expect a bee lab to test 50 bees separately for each hive of each beekeeper that wants to know how many of the bees are infected...especially if the "treatment" is one that will eventually produce more spores in more bees. If you think you want to use fumidil, I'd suggest just using it on all your hives all the time. How much do you really think the govt should spend running 100 separate tests for a hobby beekeeper with 2 hives?...let alone a commercial beekeeper with hundreds of hives. Just get a microscope, some distilled water, and start smooshing bees.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Yes Dean, I suppose your are correct. But I'm not going to do that either. See my previous Post for reasons why.

I did not ask for anyone to Sample my hives and report the findings to me, it's something the USDA and NYS want to do. I guyess they have some money to spend so they will get the funds again next year, or something.

On another note. Which is the worst healthwise, taking the advice of my P.A. or following suggested directions from someone on the internet? Hmmmm, brainer or no brainer.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by sqkcrk

On another note. Which is the worst healthwise, taking the advice of my P.A.

whats a P.A.? if you go back to Randy Olivers site, he usually post at some point the articles he has written. He went into great detail how to test I think it was 5 bees per hive and get the % of bees per hive that are infected. when N.Y. still had bee inspectors they wanted to test mine for nosema, said no back then, waste of money to test, if it exhist I'm sure my bees have it.

mike syracuse ny
I went to bed mean, and woke up meaner. Marshal Dillon

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by deknow

2. The recent research seems to show that although fumidil will control nosema C., as the treatment wears off and the concentration in the hive diminishes, it actually stimulates spore production in the nosema...a true treadmill, once you start using it, you will tend to find you need to keep using it.
I've never used the stuff, and never will.

deknow

can you share the research you read? thanks

mike syracuse ny
I went to bed mean, and woke up meaner. Marshal Dillon

Re: Treat or not to treat

Originally Posted by deknow
2. The recent research seems to show that although fumidil will control nosema C., as the treatment wears off and the concentration in the hive diminishes, it actually stimulates spore production in the nosema...a true treadmill, once you start using it, you will tend to find you need to keep using it.
I've never used the stuff, and never will.

Re: Treat or not to treat

I have no idea if Deans assertion is right or wrong but I am beginning to believe more and more that Nosema is a fickle disease that is nearly as impossible to get a definitive diagnosis as it is to determine whether treatment is cost effective. I have treated a grand total of two years in my 40 years of managing a commercial operation. I couldn't tell the difference and I even invested in a microscope. A few years ago while talking to the SD state inspector about the results of the states nosema testing (mine was really low) he asked me what I was doing different than others. I told him I not only hadn't used any fumidil But that I had also decided that the only time I would even use HBH is to try to stimulate some early brood production in December and January. I would like to qualify this by saying that we don't winter up north and I know that brings a whole different dynamic into play.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney